“You couldn't stand to see what terrifies warlords.”

“I could take care of that obstacle for her - I'd tear down anything standing between us - but I couldn't destroy what I couldn't even see.”

“I'm so tired.Once, I wanted to watch the floods coming into a canyon, to stand on the edge and see it happen, on ground that was safe but shaking. I'd like to hear the trees snapy away and see the water come higher, I thought, but only from a place where it couldn't reach me.Now I think it might be a terrifying, bright relief to stand on the canyon floor and see the wall of water coming down, and to know this is it, I am finished, and before you could even complete the thought, you would be swallowed, and whole.”

“And in another year everything will be different yet again. It is always like that, and always will be; you are forever standing on the brink, in a place where you cannot see ahead; there is nothing of which to be certain except what lies behind. This should be terrifying, but somehow it is not.”

“Where you stand determines what you see and what you do not see; it determines also the angle you see it from; a change in where you stand changes everything.”

“What you see depends on where you stand.”